Monday, 5 January 2015

17 Weeks To Go : Start As You Mean To Go On

The election battle starts here. Today. For Labour leader Ed Miliband, we stand on the brink of a 'once in a generation election', for the Tories and that scream inducing line up of George Osborne, William Hague, Theresa May, Nicky Morgan and Sajid Javid it was the first chance at dirty tactics.No sooner had Miliband, Nick Park's greatest creation, concluded his campaign launch speech in Salford, Osborne and his four cabinet colleagues stepped up to their podiums looking like the world's least favourite boy/girl band and hit Labour right in the weak spot; the economy with their document A Cost Analysis Of Labour Party Policy: The Scorecard for 2015/16Yeah, I'd wait til the film comes out too.They argue that their findings point to Labour borrowing up to £20.2 billion for 2015/16 alone whilst they will continue to take us safely and smoothly down the road of economic recovery. But it's worth pointing out that this document isn't offering up set in stone commitments from Labour and that what looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck....isn't actually always a duck.

This cost analysis looks like a Treasury document, but that doesn't make it a Treasury document and tellingly, Osborne won't let the figures within be properly analysed by the OBR because of a 'lack of resources'. What is printed within this tome is not spending commitments but rather a projected guesstimation based on implications from Labour, and implications are not commitments. Unfortunately though, on a day that should have been about the NHS, the public sector and the next 122 campaigning days for Labour, the Tories have cannily made it all about the economy, making Miliband and Ed Balls dance to their tune.

3 comments:

Not that I have any sympathy for Labour, mind you. Their performance today was best summed up today by them hastily taking to Twitter to "reassure" people that, contrary to what was being suggested, they wouldn't be reversing the Tories' cuts to arts funding. They're such an utter shambles I'd almost be inclined to say they deserve to lose the election... were it not for the fact that the thought of another Tory victory is marginally more horrifying. I think I'll settle for sending as many progressive alliance (Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru) MPs to Westminster as possible to hold a minority Labour administration to account.

I really don't know what I'll do if the Tories get in again. Miliband may be about as much use as Anne Frank's drum kit but I'd rather a deeply ineffectual excuse for Labour in power than Cameron and his cronies. Just the sight of them standing at their podiums there is enough to make me vomit

I know what you're saying makes sense... but I just can't bring myself to actively hope for a Labour victory in May. Their behaviour has simply been too reprehensible... and I'm not just talking about their conduct during the referendum. The very fact that they haven't at the very least publicly expelled Blair and his warmongering cronies makes them guilty by association as far as I'm concerned.

It's a weird election for me because I just don't know what to hope for. I suppose, for the sake of the people of England, I would marginally favour Labour forming the next government over the Tories. But that doesn't stop me from hoping that the current polls are correct and that Milliband's party is facing a near total wipe-out north of the border.

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